O South hemisphere includes most of South America, much of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and several islands in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. For some reason, it has about 24% more storms than the North hemisphere.
The reasons why this pattern exists were unknown. After many studies by the scientific community around the world, it was still not known exactly why there are more storms and extreme and catastrophic weather events in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere North.
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The study that investigated this question was published by the researchers in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in October 2022. The research was led by climate scientist Tiffany Shaw of the University of Chicago.
Ocean circulation and the large mountain ranges that exist in the northern hemisphere are some of the reasons why there are fewer storms in the north compared to the southern hemisphere.
The researchers used numerical models to describe and reproduce observations. They removed several variables one at a time and analyzed the behavior of the system without each one. In this way, they analyzed the impact of each variable on storms and large meteorological phenomena.
They found topography and ocean circulation to be the main variables. The large mountain ranges present in the northern hemisphere interrupt a large flow of air, thus reducing the formation of storms.
Another factor is ocean circulation, in which water sinks from the Arctic, travels across the ocean floor, rises close to the surface near Antarctica and continues to flow at that height, carrying a energy.
Climate change is causing not only an increase in storms, but also greater symmetry. According to the researchers, storms in the Northern Hemisphere are not increasing as much as in the Southern Hemisphere due to ice loss, which is related to increased absorption of sunlight.
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